Ryan H

Registered User

About Me

About Ryan H

Vessel Make/ model

Grampian 26, Mercury 15, unknown 28ft 1920's wooden sloop

Vessel Name

s/v Jera

Location

Massachusetts

Interests

here's a hint... I'm on a sailing forum...

Biography

My first boat washed up out of a swamp near my house when I was 6 years old. It was a styrofoam and plastic Snark sailboat with a tree growing out of the centerboard trunk. I actually tracked down the original owner and traded the rigging and hardware for a dock I built out of a tree fort, it wasn't much of a boat but I sailed it almost every day during the summer time :P

My second boat was a Cape Cod Builders Mercury 15 in poor shape that I bought when I was 17 years old from a neighbor for 25 cents. I spent most of the summer priming and painting the old crazed fiberglass, replaced the rotten wood that supported the centerboard trunk, removed, welded and painted the old swing centerboard, replaced some of the running rigging, and filled and epoxied the rudder. The boat came with a trailer that let me sail either on my lake or Plymouth bay and I got my first taste of salt water sailing.

I got my Grampian 26 for free from craigslist. The previous owner was the head manager for a restaurant in Provincetown called the Townsend Lobster. The boat was stored behind the restaurant, the restaurant was going out of business and the boat had to go. I got a hydraulic trailer to bring to my work space and spent 13 months bringing it from a beer soaked empty hull to a nice, sailable 'Pocket' liveaboard I currently live on in Boston harbor.

Most recently I accidentally acquired a wooden sloop originally built in 1920. She's a beautiful boat in surprising good condition for something almost 100 years old but it'll be a long road before her keel hits water again.